


Crossed Wires

by RileyC



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Marriage Proposal, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 11:58:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bruce shows up at the farm with a lead-lined box Clark jumps to all the wrong conclusions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossed Wires

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the DC Marriage Week challenge on tumblr; prompt - proposal.

 

“Umm, Bruce?” Clark pushed at his glasses and stared hard at the box Bruce had just taken out of his pocket. His x-ray vision could’t penetrate it and that could only mean… He backed up with as much nonchalance as he could muster until his back hit a support post in the barn. “What are you doing?”

 

“I have a question only you can answer.” Bruce came closer and Clark began to consider the quickest escape routes. “I came all the way from Gotham to ask it.” The words had a rehearsed sound to them that jolted Clark’s concern up a few notches.

 

“Okay.” Clark shoved at his glasses again. He didn’t want to hurt Bruce but he had to get out of here before Bruce opened that damn box and turned the Kryptonite on him. “Bruce? Are you all right? Have you, umm, run into Jervis Tetch lately?”

 

Bruce frowned and Clark found that oddly reassuring. Up to now the look on Bruce’s face could best be described as a blend of earnest apprehension, as if he had resolved to carry through with something he suspected was doomed. Clark took that for a positive sign. It had to mean Bruce was aware, somewhere in there; that he knew he’d been programmed to carry out this mission and was doing his best to fight it.

 

“Jervis Tetch is locked up in Arkham,” Bruce said, a trace of impatience in his voice.

 

“Oh. What about,” Clark rapidly sorted through all of their opponents who employed some kind of mind control at one time or another, “Starro? Luthor--”

 

“Clark.” Bruce reached over to put a hand over his mouth. “You’re babbling.”

 

“Mmph mmph!”

 

Bruce looked at him, eyes narrowed with suspicion, but cautiously withdrew his hand. “Look, I know this is sudden and it’s not the way I ever planned to do it, but--”

 

Clark stared at him, at a loss for words now. “Well what way _did_ you plan to do it?” He couldn’t believe this; he couldn’t even start to process it or figure out how to feel. He’d been wrong about people before but…Bruce? When he’d held him in his arms, kissed his mouth, made love to him? “Why are you doing this?” He didn’t even try to hide the hurt.

 

“Doing what? Clark.” Bruce looked at him again, intent to decipher a mystery. Concern in his eyes, he touched Clark’s face, long fingers stroking along a cheekbone in a way that had always felt so incredibly intimate. Now Clark tried to twist away from the mockery in that touch as Bruce had the gall to ask, “What’s wrong?”

 

“You come here with _that_ ,” he pointed at the lead box, the Kryptonite ring it concealed, “and you want to know what’s wrong?”

 

Bruce looked at the box, shook his head. “Well, I do beg your pardon,” he said. Ice had crept into his voice as if he was the one with a grievance. “I had formed the idea you might welcome this.”

 

Clark actually felt his jaw drop. “You thought—You _are_ out of your mind!”

 

Bruce slipped the box back in his pocket and stepped away. “Fine, then. I won’t trouble you again.”

 

He turned and started to walk away. Clark watched after him and something in him began to ping like an alarm. Bruce had been excited when he’d arrived; nervous, wary, like he was poised on the edge of something wonderful and terrifying all at once. As he made his way out of the barn, though, shoulders slumped, what Clark was reminded of were those times when Bruce had been defeated, when something precious had been lost, and Clark had a sudden and terrible feeling they had gotten their wires crossed in the worst way possible.

 

With a burst of speed, he caught up to Bruce at his rented car. “Bruce. Wait.”

 

Voice tight, angry, _hurt_ , Bruce asked, “Why?”

 

“Because I…I didn’t get to see what’s in the box.” _Lame, lame, lame, lame, lame…_

Bruce turned to face him, arms folded across his chest. “You made it clear you didn’t want to.”

 

“That’s because I thought--” He stopped, too horrendously embarrassed to finish it, and kind of hoped the way his face felt like it was on fire would convey everything.

 

Apparently not. “You thought what?”

 

Clark had never actually tried to sink right through the Earth but he really wished he knew if that was one of his powers right now. He mumbled, “I thought it was Kryptonite.”

 

Bruce tilted his head. “You thought it was Kryptonite.”

 

“Well,” he really thought he might spontaneously combust, “the box—it’s lead.”

 

Bruce nodded slowly and took the box out of his pocket again. “And the first place your brain went was that I came all the way to Kansas with a box of Kryptonite in my pocket to kill you.”

 

“Well,” Clark scrunched up his face, “yes. Wait, wait, wait!” He caught hold of Bruce’s arm to stop him from opening the car door. Ma and Pa had come out to the porch by then. He looked at them, then back at Bruce and carefully let go of his arm. “That’s why I asked you about mind control. I thought Luthor might have programmed you.” He stepped back, about out of words, almost out of hope. “I’m sorry.”

 

Bruce looked at him for a long time and then said, “I’m going to speak with your parents. Don’t eavesdrop.”

 

Clark nodded. “Okay.” He watched them huddle over on the porch. Without using his super hearing all he could really make out was a buzz of: _natter natter idiot natter natter._ He bit his lip and waited and didn’t know how to interpret it when his parents patted Bruce on the back and then went back into the house. He waited some more as Bruce just stood there and looked at him for a long time before he finally stepped down off the porch and started back across the yard to Clark.

 

“Your parents think I should give you another chance.”

 

Clark nodded. “Okay.”

 

“I am going to say this once, in clear and simple words even you,” Bruce jabbed a finger at him, “cannot possibly misconstrue, so pay attention.”

 

Clark nodded again. “Okay.”

 

“I _haven’t_ crossed paths with Tetch or Starro _or_ Luthor but I did have an encounter with Scarecrow and took a dose of fear toxin. You know how that works, the way it draws on your deepest fears and throws them back at you. I thought it didn’t have anything more to pull out of me.” Bruce paused for a moment and looked away, over at a pasture full of grazing cows. “I was wrong,” he went on. “It showed me you, it,” his jaw worked for a moment, “it showed me your death. It showed me at your grave, telling you what I’d been too afraid to say when you were there, when it would have mattered.” He looked back at Clark, eyes too bright. “ _That’s_ why I came here, you goddamn idiot. To tell you I love you. To tell you I never want to spend another day or night without you. To ask you to goddamn marry me.” He glowered at Clark as if daring him to just try and challenge any of that.

 

Clark nodded, looked at the box with a fresh understanding. “Then that’s…?”

 

Bruce snapped the box open to reveal a ring—platinum, incised with geometric bands of sapphire, one faceted sapphire in the center.

 

“It’s beautiful. But--”

 

Bruce sighed. “I put it in a lead-lined box so you couldn’t peek. It was meant to be surprise.”

 

It was Clark’s turn to look over at the cows. One of them, Lizzie, mooed back. He didn’t actually speak Guernsey but was fairly certain she’d just confirmed he was an idiot.

 

Still watching the cows, he asked, “Has all this changed your mind?”

 

“Amazingly, no.”

 

Clark looked back at Bruce. “So, then, umm.”

 

Bruce sighed again and came closer, expression still wary but yielding. “I’ve thought about this. A lot.” He bit his lip and looked like he hadn’t entirely meant to say that. After a second, though, he shrugged and continued. “There was going to be a candlelit dinner on the terrace at the Manor. Soft music playing. You would arrive late because Superman had to save someone.” His voice was soft now, a glint of affection in his eyes. “At the right moment, when I could be sure Alfred and the kids weren’t spying on us, I would take out the ring and I might have even gotten down on my knee.” He looked at the chickens scratching around them. “I’m not getting down on my knee in a farmyard.”

 

Clark smiled. The warmth he felt blossoming through him was more powerful than a thousand suns. He felt powerful and humbled and luckier than anyone had a right to. “Bruce, I,” he reached out now, to touch his face, “I have loved you for so long. You’re my best friend, my partner,” he glanced at the box and pulled a wry face, “the man I trust to save the world from me, and I think you could probably do a whole lot better,” he pressed his fingers against Bruce’s lips to stop any protest, “but if you want me then yes—yes, I accept.”

 

He leaned in to seal it with a kiss. The cows didn’t seem to mind.

 

~*~

Later, upstairs and crowded together in his old bed, Clark looked at the ring that gleamed on his hand now. “What about Batman and Superman? What will you do when some femme fatale throws herself at you? Or what if some space princess kidnaps me and wants me to father her children? Or--”

 

Bruce kissed him to shut him up. “Hardly any femme fatales throw themselves at me. You can offer to provide the space princess with a donation--”

 

“Bruce!” Clark gaped at him, mortified.

 

“—and if Lex Luthor gets his hands on a photograph of us making out in costume he can publish and be damned.”

 

“Or you could steal it and all the copies while I punch him through a wall.”

 

Bruce nodded, kissed him again. “That works, too.”

 

Clark smiled and ruffled Bruce’s hair so his bangs fell over his forehead. He kissed his forehead through the dark, silky strands. “You know, if we’re smart,” he laughed softly when Bruce gave him a look that clearly conveyed: _And when have we ever been that?_ , “we’ll elope to Vegas or something.”

 

“Your mother and Alfred would never speak to us again. I think they’ve been planning our wedding for years.”

 

“Yeah.” Clark sighed. “Lois too.”

 

“Oh god.” Bruce groaned and buried his face against Clark’s shoulder. “You’re right. She’ll barge in and take charge everything. She’ll fight Alfred and your mother for it.” He looked up at Clark. “You’re right. I’ll book a flight for Vegas,” he said and fumbled for his phone on the nightstand.

 

Clark took it from him and put it back. “It’ll be fun.”

 

“If your definition of fun is a death match to rival the Roman gladiatorial games.”

 

Clark kissed his stubborn chin, nuzzled the hollow in his throat, and began to tug at the size-too-large t-shirt Bruce had borrowed. “It’ll be exciting.”

 

“It will make a battle against Darkseid look like a tea party with watercress sandwiches.”

 

Clark slid a hand under the t-shirt. “The cake’ll be great.” He kissed Bruce’s stomach and felt the muscles flutter.

 

Bruce bit down on a moan. “The cake _will_ be amazing.”

 

“ _We’ll_ be amazing.”

 

Bruce looked up at him and smiled. “Damn right we will. World’s fucking--oh Christ--finest.”

 

Clark clicked off the lamp.


End file.
